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s16mm lens conversion


Patrick Gallagher

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Hi,

 

I am new here and an aussie camera operator. I am about to shoot a short on an Aaton A-Minima and I am just trying to find out what the 35mm stills equivalent is of a nikon/nikkor lens is on super 16mm. If anyone knows the conversion rate or could point me in the direction of a chart, that would be great.

 

Thanks a lot.

 

Pat

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it's my understanding that a 50mm lens (normal on a 35mm camera) is a "normal" view. to achieve a "normal" view on a 16mm camera, you need a 25mm lens. however, if you put a 50mm SLR lens on a 16mm camera with a mount adaptor, you still have a 50mm lens. you also have plenty of coverage in case it's a super 16mm.

 

if you put a 35mm camera in front of your subject and frame it up perfectly, and then switch that lens to a 16mm camera at the same position and attempt to frame, you'll discover that you only get a portion of your subject in the frame. that's simply because the 16mm film is a smaller format, so it has a smaller "window" on the world. in order to get the same framing of your subject with a 16mm at that same position, you'd have to use a lens that is half as long as the one you used with the 35mm camera.

 

is this the answer to your question, or were you asking about something else?

Edited by Zachary Vex
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it's my understanding that a 50mm lens (normal on a 35mm camera) is a "normal" view. to achieve a "normal" view on a 16mm camera, you need a 25mm lens.

 

I'd say that 50mm is normal on a 35mm SLR but on a 35mm-Moviecamera it's more like a light tele. For a 35mm-Moviecamera a 35mm-lens would be more like normal, hence for 16mm-moviecamera something like a 16mm- or 17mm-lens might be called normal.

 

Short SLR lenses don't open much, 24mm is already short in SLR and it's common that they start at F2.8.

 

I found that anything under 28mm SLR isn't very suitable for 16mm-movie, alltough I never made tests to compare...

 

has anybody here compared SLR-lenses versus proper 16mm-movielenses, would be interesting...

 

cheers, Bernhard

Edited by Bernhard Zitz
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Guest shutter bug

just pick whatever 16mm focal length you want to use then use the same number when finding a 35mm lens.the focal lengths are the same between formats,its the coverage that differs, that and apparently 35mm lenses have image movement when one pulls focus

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Thanks Guys,

 

I shot the film yesterday and I have to say that there were some tricky elements that I didn't expect. I got a lot of differing opinions on the magnification factor and can only estimate from looking through the lens that for S16 equivalent from 35mm stills you need to multiply between 2 and 2.5, which did surprise me. Sorry I couldn't be more accurate, I don't know yet.

 

Another surprise was how bright and sharp the nikkor prime lenses appeared to be. The only downside was that they are not designed for smooth movement and focus pulls. Some were better than others.

 

Anyway thank you all for your help and I will post an update once I know more. Hopefully the film will be alright as well.

 

Cheers

Pat

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